Recently, there has been a lot of discussion on Google’s motives and business plan. Rumors have been spread about a possible entry into the browser and instant message (IM) markets. Of course, with the purchase of Picasa, Google already has an entry in the IM marked (via Hello). So waht’s their direction? Where are they taking the world’s most popular search engine?
My theory is a bit along the lines of Jason Kottke in his speculation on a GoogleOS, but now I believe there is even more evidence to support such a claim.
Consider this. In Google’s purchase of Pyra Labs, the creator of Blogger, it took 15 months before Google fully googlified it. The redesign took place in May 2004, while the purchase was finalized in February 2003. Right after the redesign, Google started their own blog, powered by Blogger and further evidence that Google had fully sanctioned Blogger as one of their own. Unfortunately, no other examples of googlification exist. We only have that one timeline to work with. It would be safe to assume, however, that Picasa and Hello have yet to be googlified as they were just purchased in July 2004. More on this later.
Next, let’s look at another recent move by Google. Google Desktop, while in it’s infancy, is Google’s first major entry onto your desktop. It aimes to provide seamless integration between searching your personal files and searching online. Google Desktop goes as far as indexing your bookmarks, cached/recently-viewed websites, word/excel/powerpoint/outlook documents, and IM chats (besides this, it also indexes file names). It doesn’t however, index your images. That’s what Picasa’s for, right? So here we have complete seamless integration between your files and Google’s searches.
What’s next?
It is my belief that Google is building a “GoogleOS” for the average user. The ease of use of the Google Desktop is a first step in getting the user to not even notice the difference between their files and Google’s. To further push this, I believe Google will revamp Hello and allow for remote storage of your chats (by choice, I’m sure). They already index your Gmail account.
All that’s left is your files and images. But let’s think about this. Once googlified, Picasa may store your images on a remote server (again, by choice). Already, with Hello, you can store your images on Blogger’s servers for web viewing. With the addition of “tags” (ala Flickr), the revamped Picasa/Google Images will be perfect for searching for that picture of your aunt that you’ve been looking for. If Blogger is any indication, Picasa and Hello could be googlified by October 2005. However, I’m sure Google has sped up the timeline a bit.
Now we have files. If Google could create a word processor online, that’d be the ultimate. Wait. They already did. Or something similar at least. I’m typing this post in Blogger’s special “compose” section which looks very similar to a basic version of AbiWord. Taking this one step further, Google could elimate the need for Word and for even storing those files on your desktop. They would simply reside in a special section of your Gmail account, similar to the way the contacts section was just added.
Finally, we need to ask ourselves how Google is going to accomplish all this. As has been speculated, I envision XUL applications using Mozilla as a backend. We won’t see a Google Browser, we’ll see the complete GoogleOS in one, easy to download file.